Swallow Me Up
by Constable Remington
Summary: Henry's thoughts on the rag doll given to him by Walter. Spoilers for SH4. Major ones.


The reeking smell of what the young man was sure was rotting human flesh, blood, and pus had almost -- dare he admit it -- become a constant, and even the layers of deep crimson red that seemed to crawl across the floor and line to walls were hardly anything new.

After the horrors he had seen... first at the Subway station... the woman he had met only hours earlier, lying in her own blood, convinced that she was dreaming, that she was intoxicated, hallucinating... and what could he have done, but affirm the thoughts, to calm a woman with one foot in death's door?

And then that forest, and the Hope House... Used to the smells around him now as he may be, the one thing that stuck out in his mind about the whole experience in that place was the utter horror, the complete terror of the scent of burning, charred, muscle and blood and skin, the burning of human meat, and the insane cackling from the one, marked for damnation by the numbers scrawled across his chest, who was convinced he had exchanged pleasantries with the keeper of Hell's gates.

The prison... perhaps it wasn't the death he had witnessed there that had so scarred his soul, as it was the ones he had read about... the ones that played back across his mind, that he could so clearly see even though he had not witnessed them. Holes dug, rooms moved, beds stained with blood. Children were watched, when eating and sleeping and breathing and thinking and writing and dreaming and undressing and... it made him sick to think about it. He didn't want to know.

Perhaps the shopping district had been the worst. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to think of it, but he couldn't get the screaming out of his head. 'BETTER CHECK ON YOUR NEIGHBOR SOON'. The words that had so desperately been attempted to be conveyed to him... they had almost been unitelligible, but after the scene had so involuntarily played itself through his head over and over again, he could almost understand it now.

With a small shake of his head, he tried his hardest to chase the memories away, at least for now. Right now, he had more to worry about, more to ponder over. Like the hole that was staring up at him from the bottom of the stairs, like the man he had seen knocking on Eileen's door that had claimed to know her, like the doll that lie limply on the rusty metal stairs beside him.

'She was younger than me back then,' The coated man had said.

Henry frowned as his gaze turned on the simple white cloth doll, clothed in a small, faded, pale-blue dress. The stitching was done uneven and messily, like the clothing had been sewn together by a young child. Each time his thoughts swerved back to the doll on the stairs, it felt as if something inside of him was screaming to pick the small bundle of cloth up. But as his hand reached out to take it, his fingertips would come within centimeters of brushing the top of the cloth before an impulse, a reaction, a reflex inside his brain screamed and jerked his hand forcefully back on its own, to his side, where his gun lie, sitting beside him, loaded.

A few times, his arm even followed through with the motion to wrap its fingers around the pistol and jerk it back up until the loaded barrel was pointing straight at the features that had been embroidered into the small doll's 'face'. Black thread-eyes stared up at him, and glistening, deep, hazel eyes shot dangerously in return, thumb clicking the safety back and forefinger cradling the trigger like a favourite son.

But... no. There were more important things to be doing than sitting on the stairs, pointing guns at dolls. He was being silly. There were much more important things to do than sitting and waiting for nothing, than crawling through holes, than opening mailboxes that weren't his, than going through pornographic magazines or studying paintings or seeing little boys banging on his front door that weren't even there.

Something about this place really must be driving him insane, he decided, and with that, the pistol was slipped back into his pants pocket, and he stood, avoiding the doll as he climbed the last few stairs up. He had thought he had heard noises from room 303... Eileen. Perhaps he would check up there a final time, slide the last few pieces of red paper through his door, and once again allow the hole to swallow him up. Maybe this time, he wouldn't ever come out the other end.

He could only hope.


End file.
